O Lord, keep Your family the Church continually in the true faith that, relying on the hope of Your heavenly grace, we may ever be defended by your mighty power; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
There are now internet services which will aggregate your genealogical research with other people’s genealogical research to create a massive family tree. I heard one fellow recently who found out he was related to Albert Einstein and several A-list actors. Of course, there is a downside, he discovered his wife was the 12th cousin of a mass murderer.
When Christ our Lord took up humanity, he entered the whole family tree. I don’t know if the websites can trace you back to the first century and the family of Mary, Joseph, and the line of David or not, but you don’t need it to. Jesus is already in the family by baptism, and he is not some brother-in-law of a sixteenth cousin six times removed. He is brother.
We pray that God would keep His family the Church in the true faith. It is one of the truisms of life that you sometimes have that member of the family who makes your eyes roll. I think God must sometimes shake His head at what I have done. But He still claims me. I am His. He is answering this prayer with preachers, teachers, friends, a loving spouse, and maybe even a devotion writer now and again. How has He worked to keep you in the true faith today? Think about that and thank Him. It is what the members of this family do when a member of the family does something good for us.